Another EXIF thread

MichaelBorger

Hello. I know this is a common problem, but I recently put another batch of photos through my workflow (which I'm sure leaves a lot to be desired) and lost my EXIF data. Here is what I generally do:

1. Take photos on my D70 in JPEG (don't know RAW yet) at full res and largest footprint
2. Weed through any photos I don't want to keep as I bracket the heck out of everything
3. Convert remaining 'keepers' from JPEG to TIFF using IrFan (maybe this is the problem? There are a couple EXIF settings in there that I can't find an explanation on)
4. Do my post-processing in PS CS2 on the TIFFs cuz it's lossless
5. Save finished product as a new JPEG (I do NOT use Save for Web)
6. Upload to SmugMug

My post-processing is an entirely different issue, something I'm still working to perfect but I don't think anything in there - contrast, levels, etc. - would affect the EXIF so it's something else. Does anyone else use IrFan? It's great for batch conversions of entire folders.

Many thanks,
Mike

PS - I DO keep the original JPEGs

Richard

MichaelBorger wrote:

Hello. I know this is a common problem, but I recently put another batch of photos through my workflow (which I'm sure leaves a lot to be desired) and lost my EXIF data. Here is what I generally do:

1. Take photos on my D70 in JPEG (don't know RAW yet) at full res and largest footprint
2. Weed through any photos I don't want to keep as I bracket the heck out of everything
3. Convert remaining 'keepers' from JPEG to TIFF using IrFan (maybe this is the problem? There are a couple EXIF settings in there that I can't find an explanation on)
4. Do my post-processing in PS CS2 on the TIFFs cuz it's lossless
5. Save finished product as a new JPEG (I do NOT use Save for Web)
6. Upload to SmugMug

My post-processing is an entirely different issue, something I'm still working to perfect but I don't think anything in there - contrast, levels, etc. - would affect the EXIF so it's something else. Does anyone else use IrFan? It's great for batch conversions of entire folders.

Many thanks,
Mike

PS - I DO keep the original JPEGs

I don't understand why you are converting the JPGs to TIFF. Why not just open them in CS2?

MichaelBorger

rsinmadrid wrote:

I don't understand why you are converting the JPGs to TIFF. Why not just open them in CS2?

I convert them to TIFF because I may do multiple 'saves' and this can degrade a JPG whereas TIFFs are supposed to be lossless (still apply if using LZW compression?). So I'd rather do my edits and saves in the lossless TIFF format and then save the final finished version as a JPEG to upload to SmugMug. It's to preserve the integrity of the photograph.

Do I have something wrong?

z_28

I'm not expert or even fan of TIFF,
but if you shoot JPEG and convert them to "lossless" TIFF you are after one loss already !
Or even two.

Maybe shooting RAW and convert them to TIFF directly will make more common sense.

Richard

MichaelBorger wrote:

I convert them to TIFF because I may do multiple 'saves' and this can degrade a JPG whereas TIFFs are supposed to be lossless (still apply if using LZW compression?). So I'd rather do my edits and saves in the lossless TIFF format and then save the final finished version as a JPEG to upload to SmugMug. It's to preserve the integrity of the photograph.

Do I have something wrong?

You are correct that repeated saving of JPGs can lead to degradation. And also that LZW is lossless. When you say you do multiple saves, do you mean you save a file as a TIFF, then re-open it later? You could do that in CS2 itself from the JPG just by changing the file type when you save. But why not just save it as a PSD file until you are done with it, then save it as a JPG? I suspect you may be losing the EXIF data in the conversion you are doing before you bring it into CS2, and I am still unclear what that step is adding.

MichaelBorger

rsinmadrid wrote:

You are correct that repeated opening and saving of JPGs can lead to degradation. And also that LZW is lossless. When you say you do multiple saves, do you mean you save a file as a TIFF, then re-open it later? You could do that in CS2 itself from the JPG just by changing the file type when you save. But why not just save it as a PSD file until you are done with it, then save it as a JPG? I suspect you may be losing the EXIF data in the conversion you are doing before you bring it into CS2, and I am still unclear what that step is adding.

Yes, by multiple saves I mean I may save my work (edits) a few times as I'm going through my finishing steps (contrast, colors, etc.). I may come back to it the next day and make even more changes, saving it yet again. If I do this continually in JPG I'll ruin the photo but not so as TIFF. That's why I've been doing it this way.

I suppose for my purposes, I could just as easily convert to PSD instead of TIFF. I'll have to see if IrFan offers that. I use IrFan because it's free and I can batch convert an entire folder from JPEG to TIFF (and maybe PSD). Can CS2 do that as well? I don't want to do it one file at a time. I'm not very familiar with batch and action capabilities in Photoshop.

As I generally don't use layers (maybe someday down the road if I see a need), I haven't yet seen the reason for using the PSD format. I suppose there may be other advantages that may be lost on me at the present time and this EXIF issue may be a good example.

Thanks for your assistance so far.

Richard

MichaelBorger wrote:

Yes, by multiple saves I mean I may save my work (edits) a few times as I'm going through my finishing steps (contrast, colors, etc.). I may come back to it the next day and make even more changes, saving it yet again. If I do this continually in JPG I'll ruin the photo but not so as TIFF. That's why I've been doing it this way.

I suppose for my purposes, I could just as easily convert to PSD instead of TIFF. I'll have to see if IrFan offers that. I use IrFan because it's free and I can batch convert an entire folder from JPEG to TIFF (and maybe PSD). Can CS2 do that as well? I don't want to do it one file at a time. I'm not very familiar with batch and action capabilities in Photoshop.

As I generally don't use layers (maybe someday down the road if I see a need), I haven't yet seen the reason for using the PSD format. I suppose there may be other advantages that may be lost on me at the present time and this EXIF issue may be a good example.

Thanks for your assistance so far.

I think the key point you are missing here is that there is no need to convert the JPGs before you open them in CS2. It can open the JPGs then save them as TIFF files or PSD files (or a number or other formats) as an integral part of the save file dialog. It does not require a separate step or a batch process. Once you get a little more adept with CS2, you will almost certainly want to save intermediate work as PSD files, so as not to lose masks and other Photoshop goodies.

MichaelBorger

rsinmadrid wrote:

I think the key point you are missing here is that there is no need to convert the JPGs before you open them in CS2. It can open the JPGs then save them as TIFF files or PSD files (or a number or other formats) as an integral part of the save file dialog. It does not require a separate step or a batch process. Once you get a little more adept with CS2, you will almost certainly want to save intermediate work as PSD files, so as not to lose masks and other Photoshop goodies.

I was not aware until just now when I delved into the help section that I could perform the same batch filetype conversion in PS that I was doing in IrFan. My main reason again for doing this was that I wanted to convert at the folder level - not one photo at a time. That's way too time-consuming. So now I'll figure out actions and batch or the image processing steps as an alternative to IrFan and see if my Exif information stays.

Thanks again.